O’Connell’s 0-12, Na Piarsaigh 2-5.

O’Connell’s reached the semi-final of the intermediate championship for the third year in a row with this one point victory over Na Piarsaigh under the lights in Haggardstown on Friday night. The Bellingham men were out of the blocks a lot faster in the first half and were six nothing up after 12 minutes. Robert Quigley opened the scoring in the first minute, Mark Stanfield made it two nil and Niall Conlon added the third before Stanfield got his second after 8 minutes. Stanfield got his third point from a brilliant side line kick and Paul McKeever made it six nil to the O’Connell’s. The sides swapped the next four scores with David Boyle getting both points for the Piarsaigh from frees and a Stuart Reynolds free and a point from John Flanagan for the Castlebellingham men. Stanfield had two great goal chances when left one on one with only the keeper to beat but Paul O’Hare spread himself well and made two great saves to keep his side in the game. Boyle got his and his side’s third score of the game just before half time to leave it O’Connell’s 0-8, Na Piarsaigh 0-3 at the break.

The second half was full of incident with penalty’s awarded and one not awarded that was the clearest of them all. Stuart Reynolds got the first point of the half for O’Connell’s from a free, then with Robert Quigley clean through on goal and taken down by the keeper the ref waved play on to the amazement of almost every person in the ground. But play went on and up the field Na Piarsaigh went and the ref give a penalty for a foul by the O’Connell’s full back and Boyle made no mistake from the spot. The Bellingham men had all the play but missed a lot of scores. Stanfield got his fourth point of the game from another brilliant side line kick, and just after that he was taken down in the box the was awarded a penalty but he put the spot kick wide, with only four points between the sides. Boyle put over another free to leave three between them but O’Connell’s added two more quick points to their score, a free from Reynolds and another for Flanagan with four minutes to go. Boyle added another free to reduce it to four, but he also missed two frees that were good chance’s by his standards. Then with time up the Rock Road men got their second goal from their only scorer of the game the impressive Boyle, but after the next kick out the final whistle sounded with one point between the sides. O’Connell’s were the better team on the night and should have had this game well rapped up long before the drama of the last ten minutes.

O’Connell’s: Sean Connelly; Jason Carroll, Conor Byrne, Keith Woods; Killian Shields, Jackie Agnew, Niall Conlon 0-1; Colm Kearney, Paul McKeever 0-1; Salem Rifaie, John Flanagan 0-2, Stuart Reynolds 0-3(3f); Robert Quigley 0-1, Keith Ryan, Mark Stanfield 0-4. Subs Andrew Sharkey for Quigley, PJ Tuite for Carroll and Dean Stanfield for Rifaie.

Na Piarsaigh: Paul O’Hare; Sean McAuley, Ronan McCartney, Damien McGeeney; John Garvey, Michael Woods, Eamon McAuley; Donal Hegarty, Gary O’Hare; Gavin McGee, Alan McCartney, Gerard Smyth; Shane Callan, David Boyle 2-5, Niall Franklin. Subs Cormac Malone for Franklin and Niall Franklin for Smyth.

[Report: Aidan Murtagh]